Hello, new MS1s!
Welcome to PSOM! I hope you are as excited about starting medical school as I am about having you join the Penn Med community. I know you must be feeling some stress as well, especially about entering a new phase of your life amidst a worldwide pandemic. (Although, just think — someday you’ll be able to tell your patients that you started medical school in the middle of the COVID-19 crisis!) When we MS2s were asked to write letters to incoming students, I started thinking about what I could say to help you start medical school in the best way possible.
After a while, I realized that all of my advice can be summed up in one statement: Invest in your time at PSOM.
Invest in your personal development. When I started med school, upperclasspeople kept telling me that in MS1 year I’d have the most free time I would ever have in medical school. It was hard to believe at the time — but from what I’ve seen, it’s true. Although it will definitely take time to settle in and find a rhythm, I challenge you to use that free time to cultivate what makes you, you. Yes, this can and should involve investing in organizations and projects at the medical school about which you feel passionate, and/or taking elective courses in topics that interest you. But don’t forget to invest in your interests outside of school, too! Do you enjoy exercising? Explore the city while going on runs, or join an intramural team (when the pandemic calms down!). Do you enjoy reading for pleasure? Make some time on the weekends to read a novel. Is faith an important part of your life? Find a church or other place of worship in the city to get involved in. Medical school will fill up however much time you give it, so reserve some time for your own interests and hobbies to keep yourself sane and healthy!
Invest in your learning team. You can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family, and you can’t choose your learning team. Like family, your learning team can provide a vital support structure as you navigate medical school. This will probably be even more important with social distancing and a hybrid curriculum, because your learning team will be a consistent touchpoint amidst remote learning. The most memorable lesson I learned that shaped my attitude toward my learning team came from talking to an older student: She mentioned a quirk that a member of her learning team had, and I asked if that quirk annoyed her. She essentially responded by saying, “No. She’s on my learning team, so I just accept that quirk and love her anyway.” I have the best learning team ever, but I don’t think that came about as some miraculous fluke. It seems to me that the most functional learning teams are those in which the members decide to treat each other like family – genuinely caring about each other, accepting each other’s quirks, being willing to have difficult conversations if necessary, and being quick to forgive and forget if conflict does arise.
Invest in your classmates. I’ve gotten to meet quite a few of you through interviews, StORM, PMCF, and Preview events, and let me tell you: Your classmates are awesome. You are smart, passionate, driven, and interesting people. Although socializing will look different this year, I hope you all intentionally take the time to meet as many of your fellow MS1s as possible. Some of these people could be your colleagues for the rest of your life — after all, medicine is a pretty small world! Forming a class identity may be more difficult with remote learning, but it isn’t impossible. For example, my class has come together in really cool ways since the pandemic started, including organizing PPE collection drives, joining in advocacy and protests for the Black Lives Matter movement, and holding virtual racial justice discussions and book clubs. I can’t wait to see what amazing things your class will do as you all get to know each other and find your places within the Penn Med community.
Invest in PSOM as an institution. One thing that surprised me about being a medical student was how much power we have to shape our curriculum and the institution as a whole. For example, Community LEAPP, SNMA and StORM’s Initiatives to Achieve Racial Equity, and the new elective on racism and social systems are just some recent demonstrations of the many student-driven initiatives that have led to lasting changes in our curriculum and institutional organization. Institutional change is often slow and challenging, but I’ve seen that it is more likely to happen when large groups of students come together to support a common goal. I hope that your class will work together to find ways to make PSOM better for the students who come after you.
The first year of medical school is challenging, but very rewarding. I think I can speak for all of my classmates in saying that we are rooting for you! I hope I get to meet you all in person someday soon.
Best of luck!
Alexa Larsen
Alexa Larsen is an MS2 at the Perelman School of Medicine. Alexa can be reached by email at [email protected].
